Given that PL6 does not support HEIC images, I was wondering what the best workflow was for processing photos from an iPhone. One option is setting the iPhone to create JPEG images. Simple, but if HEIC gives better quality, is it worth using HEIC and then using some other app to convert to TIFF? Of course, that eats up disk space, so it not worthwhile unless it results in a noticeable improvement over using JPEG. Also, I tried converting HEIC using Finder on a Mac, and the resulting TIFF was unreadable by PL6, despite choosing no compression. I use both Windows and Mac, so my question is not specific to either OS.
Having imported images from the iPhone via Finder, converting to JPEG, they seem horribly over-processed (which is obviously due to the phone settings) and I was wondering what others have found the best settings if images are then to be edited in PL. My phone is not one that supports ProRaw, so I cannot use that.
What I found: Never even try PhotoLab on pictures taken by mobile devices
herman
(Leica M9 | iPhone 15 Pro | iMac M1 | PL6, FP, VP | Photo Supreme)
3
In my experience HEIC does not give better quality than JPG, on the iPhone HEIC uses the same 8 bit depth as JPG. The only advantage is that HEIC needs less storage space.
Yep, that is a known problem. I raised a bug report to support long time ago, but is has not been fixed yet.
When you want to process iPhone images in DPL your best bet is to shoot JPG.
You can shoot raw on the iPhone using a third party app, but then you need some other program to process these images as DPL will not recognize them.
My current PL6 workaround (Win PC) is to take all iPhone file types through either the Microsoft Photos application or Topaz Photo AI, saving as TIFs. I’ve not had any problems taking the TIFs into PL6. When finished, I archive the original files and will usually delete the TIF intermediates.
Problem with Affinity is they haven’t got DNG working correctly for some phones, Samsung in my case. The exposure isn’t being read correctly. So the jpg preview is 1 to 2 stops lighter than the DNG. They are being as stubborn/slow as DxO can be in sorting it.
Hello John,
that is correct but does not bother me.
On my Samsung S20, for example, the DNG is brighter than the JPG after opening.
And the JPEG’s are already out of the cam as jpeg quite good.
Although I’m always annoyed that the night shots my wife takes with her older Huawei P30 pro are better.
Maybe I need to upgrade to a S23 pro
They dont open correctly either. One if the affinity staff has one and told me its a basic problem that should be simple to fix but hasn’t yet. My 22 and his 23 have the problem of being too dark by 1 to 2 stops.
Thanks but I think that’s an Apple option. Affinity support told me on the Mac and iPad there is problems with S22 and latter DNGs as well. They have known for over a year now there is a problem but…
I don’t think so, but at the moment I can not check it because I have no access to my windows machine. But if I remember correct you have the same possibility in the windows version of AP2.
If you are in the develop persona you will find it here
The Windows one, at least with me, just has Serif. To have it as a menu option does imply another engine could be there. Or it’s just been left in from the base code when compiled for windows as I think unlike DxO they have a common code and not produced for each operating system so it’s possible some things that are needed on one are left but un working in others. Affinity support told me they use LibRaw in windows and Apple Core Raw in the Mac versions. But they had problems with both with Samsung S22 on. I don’t understand why as LibRaw say the version of it that’s used in Affinity opens (as it does in FastRawViewer) the DNGs OK. They also said Serif wasn’t reading the exposure in the DNGs which was the problem (and said if Serif asked them they would tell them what to do) . Sounds like the same problem in all versions of Affinity.
